Berluti brightens tradition up in collaboration with artist Brian Rochefort

In times of separation and social barriers like the present ones, Berluti craves connection and artistic dialogue.

Under the guidance of Kris Van Assche since 2018, the Parisian fashion house keeps telling a story of rebel masculinity, colored and predominantly fluid; somewhat unconventional traits, which have gradually become the Belgian designer’s trademark, and which, for next season, brightens up the tradition and tailoring rigor through the exuberant aesthetics of the ceramics artist Brian Rochefort.

 

A passionate collector of ceramics artworks, and besides, an admirer of Rochefort’s pieces, Van Assche finds incredible similarities between Berluti’s hands-on, artisanal ways of working with colours, and the American sculptor’s experimental vision. Inspired by exotic plants, volcanoes and encrustations, the latter’s exquisite combinations result, indeed, in wondrously organic, natural effects, and for this reason, unpredictable aesthetics, the same that Berluti pursues in its collections.

 

With a 10-minutes short movie previewed at the Paris Men’s Fashion Week, Berluti takes us behind the scenes, in order to discover the creative processes behind its Men’s Spring 2021 – fully unveiled and launched in stores in January 2021 -, as well as to see, at a close-up distance, the garments and the accessories taking shape between Van Assche’s home in Paris and Rochefort’s studio in Los Angeles.

Using close-up photography, the richness and the depth of the 3D textures of the sculptures are therefore translated into 2D, enthralling prints applied on silk shirts. Made of intarsias and mélanges of yarns, sweaters knitted by hand reproduce the materic texture of the sculptures.

The experiment also offered the occasion to see how far the brand could go colorwise through the patina traditional method, which is the result of secret, age-old techniques for colouring and bleaching leather that Berluti has been carefully guarded for decades.

 

The final effect is certainly striking: a fertile collaboration, indeed, where dialogue and artistic exchange result in pure jubilations of colors, in name of joy and freedom as an escapist cure from modern times fears and challenges.

 

 

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